Timothy Blossom-The Champ!

Extract from Timothy Blossom –The Champ!

Chapter One

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Timothy James Arthur Blossom, or Timothy for short. I’m thirteen years, two months and fifteen days old, or at least I am until tomorrow when that fifteen becomes a great big fat sixteen.

I live at 47 Eaton Drive, which is in a place called East Winslow, forty miles from London. I live with my parents. Their names are Bert and Barbara, but I call them Mum and Dad. My best friend’s name is Schrodinger. He’s orange and swims around all day in a glass tank in the corner of my bedroom.

Another really big thing you need to know about me is that I have something I call the A-word. I don’t exactly know why using the proper name for it makes me feel so uncomfortable. It just does. But if you must know, the A stands for—and I’m going to say it really, really, really quietly—autism.

Mum says that having the A-word makes me unique and means that I see the world in a way that no one else can. She said it’s the reason I’m so brainy when it comes to science in general, and astronomy in particular, and why I struggle with all the ‘unimportant, fiddly’ little things in life. Things like tying my shoelaces and doing the buttons up on my coat. Well, all I can say about that is that they may seem like unimportant, fiddly little things to her, but they ABSOLUTELY-DEFINITELY do not seem like unimportant, fiddly little things to me! I mean, it’s pretty embarrassing being the only kid in my school who has to wear those disgusting slip-on shoes with ugly Velcro strap-overs. Whenever I take my shoes off to play indoor games, the sound of that Velcro breaking open echoes around the sports hall like thunder cracking the sky open after a July heatwave. Once, all the other kids started laughing and pointing at me. I bet they were thinking, look at Timothy Blossom and his ugly strap-on shoes! I don’t think I’ll ever get over the trauma of that terrible day!

Sometimes I wish I wasn’t the only A-word kid in my class, and that I wasn’t so ‘unique’, and ‘able to see the world differently to other people’, and that my ‘special wiring’, as Mum calls it, wasn’t quite so special. Sometimes I really, REALLY wish that my ‘wiring’ was the same as everyone else’s. Well, everyone else’s apart (obviously) from Adrian Wilkes, who I have to sit next to in class. I wouldn’t want his ‘wiring’ if you paid me a million pounds and told me I’d never have to eat wholemeal, with the crusts left on, again—ever!

I must admit, though, Adrian’s not quite as annoying as he used to be. Although… now I think about it, maybe he is, and I’m just getting used to his stupid comments…? Anyway, enough about Adrian Wilkes for now.

The only other kids in my class I speak to—if I really have to—are Clare Feathersdale and Amanda Goldbloom. They sit at the desk in front of the one I share with Adrian. I spend most of the day staring at the backs of their heads, which suits me just fine, because it means that I can avoid making eye contact.

Clare and Amanda are always linking arms in the playground and sharing their sandwiches at lunchtime—YUK! All those germs! They say they’re ‘best friends for life’, which means they must have found a way of predicting the future. Otherwise, how could they possibly know they’d still be best friends when they’re as old as Mum and Dad?

According to Cynthia from Student Services, who helps me with my social skills on Wednesday afternoons, Clare and Amanda and I are slightly more than acquaintances but slightly less than actual friends. I’m not entirely sure what I’m supposed to do with this information because, number one: I don’t like things that are in between, and number two: I’ve never actually had, or wanted friends before, other than, of course, the only best friend I’ll ever need, Schrodinger, or Schrody for short. Me and Schrody don’t link arms or hug, the way Clare and Amanda always do. Mainly because Schrody’s got slippery orange fins, and, just like me, he doesn’t enjoy all of that huggy, kissy stuff. And as for sharing sandwiches, well, once, as a special treat, I gave him a slice of bread coated in peanut butter and strawberry jam. The bread floated on the surface of the water for three days before going green and mouldy. It was pretty disgusting. Mum made me fish it out with a tea strainer and told me I must ‘NEVER, EVER give Schrodinger human food again.’ Well, I think I DEFINITELY learned my lesson from THAT traumatic experience!

The other thing Cynthia from Student Services told me during our discussion about social skills, was that I am also ‘slightly more than acquaintances’ with Adrian. But because I went over to his house after school once and ate pizza, we are now, apparently ‘almost friends’ and might become ‘actual friends’ if I were ever to go over to his house and eat pizza again. I quite like pizza, but as for Adrian Wilkes, well, I thought you were supposed to actually like people you were going to be friends with. All I can say about that is that if Clare and Amanda are best friends, then Adrian and I must be worst friends, because other than sharing a desk in class, we have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING in common.

There are lots of other kids in my class, of course, apart from Clare, Amanda, and Adrian. But I haven’t bothered learning their names. I mean… what would be the point? I don’t plan on ever speaking to any of them. That would be a waste of good brainpower. And trust me, even with my special wiring, I need all the brainpower I can get my hands on if I’m going to be a famous scientist like Einstein one day…